Dead Cells

The game is fire, highly recommend. Below are some essential tips for enjoying yourself more as a more casual player. For my purposes, casual = if you often ask yourself "what the fuck am I doing", if not casual then ignore.

0. If any strategy from here or elsewhere is ruining your fun with the game, just don't do it. You enjoying the game is the most important thing, fuck everything else.

1. *Most important*: At the beginning of the run, pick Brutality (Red, melee), Tactics (Purple, ranged), or Survival (Green, shields & utility) as your main skill.
- Whenever you get an upgrade scroll, pick only this color (unless the game does not give you the option).
- Use a weapon of this color too.
- Do NOT spread your points evenly.
- Reason for this: by the time you have 15 points, your damage is increased by more than 200%. (The 15% per level stacks.) If you spread the points evenly you get a lot of health but hit like wet noodle. Jack of all trades is a master of none, in this game anyway.

2. "Custom mode" is amazing, unlock it an use it.
- The mode lets you choose which items appear in the run.
- For example, if I don't like the "Balanced Blade" very much, I can just disable it for next run, and only other items will appear. You can disable more items and re-enable them before every run.
- You unlock it by finishing the 1st and 2nd stages, then go to Ramparts, then kill a special elite zombie there.
- There is no penalty for this as long as you keep at least 20 items. If you have less than 20, you can't get achievements but all other progress is saved.

3. Ignore the timer completely and fully clear every level. Kill all enemies, get all cells, get all gold, at least take a look at every (free) item.
- Don't be fooled by the "2:00" door at the first level, and similar doors. There are no scrolls behind it, they are way more important than the loot you get from the door. The "30 kills without damage" door is reasonable to shoot for, though.
- You are much stronger and hit much harder for the entire run if you are full clearing. This isn't Risk of Rain, difficulty is the same on the final boss and every level in between whether you are 10 minutes into the run or over an hour.
- You can save and quit in the middle of a run, come back any time, and pick up exactly where you left off. The game autosaves your exact location/progress frequently. You can literally play for 5 mins, and save and quit, and come back standing in the same place.

ok, bye!

No Rest for the Wicked…
» Dead Cells is a triumph of shockingly good game design: the ever-changing guts of its beautifully illustrated levels, a staggering array of game-changing weapons and gadgets, and its breakneck motion fuse into an engrossing loop. It’s so engaging that even after dozens of hours clawing through its island fortress, I’m still discovering and devouring new morsels.
Choice and Consequence
» The heart of Dead Cells is its layered commitment to risk and reward. At its surface, you’re a decapitated prisoner reanimated for some unknown reason to run through a dozen levels that are gorgeously detailed — even though they’re procedurally generated — only to die and use what you’ve learned and collected to get a little farther the next time. This loop is at the core of what makes progressing through Dead Cells so special. Each new zone you reveal, each new artifact or weapon or skill you uncover, it all spurs that bittersweet, rewarding sense you’re slowly peeling away a great mystery.
The placement and order of its levels are Dead Cells’ skeletal frame, but the ever-changing layouts and enemy and item placements are the blood that pumps through its heart. It’s what makes every run different enough to be consistently tense and surprising and what challenges the notion you’ve seen it all when you’re dozens of runs through. You simply don’t know what you’re going to find, because it could be anything from a huge pool of equipment that’s delivered with perfect pacing. And just when I thought I’d dredged the best from that pool, in the very next run a shiny new toy would drop with glittering fanfare and I’d race to bank it with The Collector.
And though it may sting when you have to say goodbye to those perfect turrets that helped you progress further than ever before — the ones that set victims ablaze and do double damage to burning enemies in tandem — or the tens of thousands of gold you’ve collected on a particularly bountiful run, the actual progression comes from unlocking buffs, skills, and weapons between each run that never go away — no matter how often you thrust your face into walls of spikes while trying to set a new land speed record in the Ancient Sewers.
But through that constant repetition, like being trapped in some kind of gothic-horror Groundhog Day, you’ll scrape together money, blueprints for new items, and Cells you can spend to unlock blueprints and buffs for future use. Each small bit of persistent power you pick up propels you forward like a bloody snowball careening down a mountain until you feel unstoppable.
Speed Demon
» Momentum is where Dead Cells really shines. Its slick system of running, jumping, dodging, and pounding through these dungeons feels so good that the desire to move and attack quickly overrides a lot of the caution that comes with a game where death sends you back to the beginning.
Motion Twin’s subtle design pushes you forward through ingenious touches. You’re rewarded for multi-kills with a burst of movement speed to keep propelling you forward. You don’t take damage from colliding with enemies, only their attacks inflict harm, and that grants a sense of safety even in the presence of diverse and deadly foes. If you’re wily enough, move fast enough, or jump precisely enough, you’re untouchable.
Dead Cells’ movement and combat encourage you to put it all on the line to get a little farther. It’s meant to be replayed dozens of times, unlocking another small but significant fragment of the broad skillset with each new artifact you earn. Once you’ve unlocked all of the clever Metroid-style abilities you’re eventually able to move unrestricted through Dead Cells’ darkest recesses to uncover its skimpy, but fun, bits of story and cleverly hidden game references in secret areas.
There’s a genuine sense that the secrets hiding near the end of Dead Cells’ journey are as potent as those you’re able to unlock near the start. Finding a rune in the acidic pits of the Toxic Sewers changed my first 15 minutes of every run thereafter. I now had access to a hefty portion of new equipment, secret areas, and alternate routes that were once unreachable. There was almost a rush in dying because it meant I could dive back into the opening minutes to uncover something I previously couldn’t. That feeling carries over with each new artifact, especially after discovering what’s on the other side of the final boss.
Improv, Improve
» The real diversity in each run comes from an excellent set of choices in how you want the second-to-second gameplay to work. Perhaps you’ll blitzkrieg through with speed and fire and sword — you’ll be rewarded for your reckless pace with access to timed locking gates that only open if you reach them in their stingily allotted times. Or maybe you’ll go through Dead Cells methodically, using ranged weapons, traps, and turrets to safely pierce, poison, burn, or butcher enemies and thoroughly explore every inch of each level for treasure. You’ll be stronger for it.
These playstyles are changeable on the fly, too, thanks to Dead Cells’ smart system for powering up throughout a run by collecting Scrolls of Power. In the beginning, you’re weak and fragile, but as you collect these scrolls you’ll be able to choose a build based on your style and items. The catch is that building an aspect buffs its associated weapons and skills and it’s also how you increase your maximum health pool.
The more scrolls you dump into a specific aspect, the less overall health you get for each consecutive one, so if you want to play a headless beefcake capable of taking a blow, it’s wise to spread your points out. However, doing so means you’re not particularly powerful with any one set of items, so your damage likely won’t be enough to whittle down the ever-inflating enemies in the later levels. I love that in Dead Cells you are free to experiment, but you don’t quite know how it will all shake out. Your starting weapons, the items you pick up, and their modifiers are always different. It keeps you improvising.
After all of the experimenting, the one overarching strategy I discovered was that you can’t always go for the throat. My first 10 runs in Dead Cells were all aimed directly at the final boss, but I quickly realized spending over an hour to get there only to immediately die because I hadn’t properly prepared was a waste of effort. My revised strategy was to focus on extracting blueprints for new gear in some runs, and on harvesting Cells to unlock those items and buffs in others. And every once in a while, I’d just run like a madman with a death wish and explore as much as possible.
For a more dramatic change of pace, there’s a daily dungeon outside of your main campaign that tosses you into a random map with random pickups to see how fast you can kill the boss. And, like all things in Dead Cells, this mode also rewards permanent progression (in the form of blueprints) for consecutively clearing these challenges each day. It’s a fun distraction and gives you the chance to test out gear you’ve yet to find in your game.
Conclusion
» Overall, Dead Cells is rewarding in its flexibility in a way few games are. Each easily digestible run through its beautifully detailed and shifting levels instills a feeling of discovery and familiarity. It goads you to push the limits of your ability and mercilessly crushes you when you get too comfortable. There are layers of strategy and tactics buried not only in the immediate choices you make, but in the grander metagame each run builds toward. It resembles a triumphant union of instinct, forethought, fun, and failure.
Score: 9.5/10
Was this review helpful?
» If so, please leave a rating. Awards are also greatly appreciated!

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

The game has more depth then it seems. The game play never gets redundant even though you are repeating run after run.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

TLDR; I had this in my Wishlist forever. Finally bought it, and glad I did.
It is a repetitive game; one you are supposed to just get better and better at the more you play. If you're into that, then you'll like it. There is also randomness to it; so in one game you might feel nearly invincible, and another you just want to die. If you're into that, then you'll like it. Finally, if you manage to make it to hard mode, you'll get owned, and owned, and owned. If you like to overcome that sort of thing, then you'll like it. Expect to play this game a lot if you want to concur it.

Dead Cells is the GOAT of roguelikes! The combat is smooth, with a variety of weapons to fit any playstyle. The procedurally generated world keeps things fresh, and the diverse biomes are fun to explore. Enemies are challenging but fair, pushing you to get better. Even with permadeath, progression feels rewarding. The mysterious lore adds depth without being intrusive. Perfect for quick sessions or all-nighters, this game’s endless replayability and killer aesthetics make it a must-play. If you love action-packed, challenging Metrodivania... Then this game is definitely for you